Reolink - Battery Video Doorbell

Don’t get the battery one. I bought it and returned it. It doesn’t have ONVIF, RTSP, or any of the things that would make integrate with HA or Scrypted, and the battery constantly goes dead even though I had it connected to my transformer. Just sucked all around for this purpose. I replaced it with the hardwired wi-fi version and it’s 100x better. I use it mostly with Scrypted and Homekit, but it is added to my HA instance as well. The difference in image quality is negligible to my eyes although the battery version did have a wider FOV.

Reolink battery version does not work with HA unless you also buy their DVR.

With 230v running through the chime and button (which sounds crazy to me) you could probably get away with using a Zigbee dry contact sensor like a Shelly for chime events. Anything else is going to require a transformer to step down to a “normal” level of 12-24 volts. The Reolink WiFi will work fine with this but won’t drive a mechanical chime. You have to use the one it came with. It also comes with a transformer, at least the US version does, (a small power brick) that you might be able to use the existing wiring in your wall for after it’s disconnected from the mains. That’s exactly what I did. My existing doorbell transformer wasn’t adequate so I just used the one that came with it instead. It came with a wireless chime that I use inside the house. The WiFi + battery version can drive a mechanical chime typical in USA applications but it sucks and doesn’t even work with HA anyway.

Reolink…been using their product for over 10 years

Reolink was already recommended but I’m here to second it. You can do local storage on your own wifi or store video in an sd card in the camera. Got it because I didn’t want a subscription and wanted exclusive access to the video, not stored on someone else’s servers

So just to confirm, I can buy the 2k wifi version, this can be wired in with my existing wiring that I’m using for the nest hello and then use the SD card for storage?

Perfect thanks We’re getting there So, I’m going to pull the trigger just now on the reolink 2k wifi doorbell. I’ll sort out a 256gb card for it Cameras wise, I could see from my post the other day that there was some negativity towards using a bundled kit. I’ve been hovering around a Costco bundle which is currently a hundred quid off and uses the P334 cameras which (according to Costco) are legit cameras AND have the SD card slots! SO Would I still be able to run the config you’ve suggested with the PoE switch? Is there any limitations cos I’m using Costco reolink bundle? Still not entirely sure if I can rotate the image 90 degrees if I mount those cams on a vertical wall to look down the side of the house. Some say you can, others claim you can’t. Some even say it’s not required, as the whole camera lens itself can turn to point the right way. Never thought this would be so tasking but have to get it right I guess.

All Google Assistant doorbells do this. Open Google Home app, go to live view for the doorbell, ‘…’ icon top right, Settings, then turn on Voice Announcements. It explains exactly what what this option does on that page, which is produce visitor announcements on GA speakers which of course includes the Google Home Mini. Not really sure what the point of “proving” this is but here are some screenshots of this setting for the Reolink doorbell. It works exactly as OP wants, ie chime on a Google Home Mini when the doorbell button is pressed. https://preview.redd.it/ljjk8i5ddp8e1.jpeg?width=2358&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7adfd732599ad20e40fb70566a177af3b821aac0 I also have Arlo and Aosu doorbells on other properties which work in exactly the same way, also chiming to one or more Google Home Minis. This has worked for many years.

Same. I made my Reolink doorbell HKSV compatible via Scrypted, but the Reolink randomly croaked this week. Decided to try the G410 cause of native HKSV, but now the G400 seems like a more reliable option, even though it's a lower model? Who the heck makes a doorbell that's not fully weather resistant? I want an HKSV doorbell that works with my existing doorbell wiring that is reliable. That's it. Maybe Apple will make one eventually.

I just install my doorbell to HA and am testing myself to see which one is best for the battery. I have my doorbell facing a street so I don't know if it makes much of an impact. So far I have lost 10% in about 3 hours. Right now I only have it set to take a picture when you press the bell. The cold affects it, but I don't know if there is anything else that affects it. You might regret not choosing a POE installation.

Yes, Reolink Doorbell. But I'm trying different settings. I found that the infrared lamp was turning on quite often, so that setting is turned off now, so it's a little better.

It's too big project for me to solve a POE solution so that's why it became a wireless one with battery. I have power on the other side of the wall so I don't know if I can drill out or take from the lamp over the doorbell.

So first night I lose 3% from 22-06.

My simple reolink doorbell works with two way audio. The doorbell is connected to Frigate, and frigate is integrated in home assistant. As an added bonus, you also get an NVR with cool object recognition, and you can trigger automations based on that

In the middle of ditching nest for Reolink as well. Done with nest after their last price increase to Aware. Reolinks are recoding to the SD card, as well as a QNAP NAS in the house. And using scrypted to pipe things to Apple HomeKit to have events still recorded in the cloud (you know, in case the bad guys steal the camera and the NAS). Google Nest can kick rocks.

Get the battery powered Reolink doorbell. That will work with your existing chime. I just installed one a few weeks ago and it has worked well. You lose the ability to get continuous recording capabilities, but it'll charge the battery from the doorbell transformer so you can pretty much set it up and forget it.

Another vote +1 for Reolink and Scrypted. Been rock solid for years. This combo gives you two way audio, phone alerts, Picture in Picture on the ATV, doorbell notifications on HomePods, etc.

I have a Reolink 2K Battery.  This does support mechanical chime.  Door bell is a battery base, but charged by your doorbell transformer. It steals enough juice to charge, but not activate the chime.  Chime works without issue. Videos sent to my NVR. I get the phone notifications. No subscriptions or fees. 

Pretty much the only realistic option is the reolink doorbell, but for this kind of functionality don't go with battery. None will support the exact same 'call' style notification through home assistant that you'd get with their own apps. The home assistant app doesn't have call functionality built in. You can however enable 2 way audio, on mine I setup an actionable notification on doorbell press that takes me to the doorbell dashboard page with the mic already loaded to reduce connection times

If I uncheck everything except visitor then when someone approaches the doorbell but doesn't press the button, the camera won't send me a push alert. Google does it well where it sends me the notification, but doesn't play a chime in the house. The only time it plays a chime is when someone actually pushed the doorbell. Reolink however is chiming on all alerts through the google hub. The only way as you mentioned is to turn off everything bar visitor in push schedule, but I want to get alerts when someone comes to the front door but doesn't press the doorbell.

Feels like I'm the lone warrior here recommending Tapo ?? I have the D235, and it's great. It does cover head to toe, but you need to be strategic with placing it to ensure it covers the toe area you need. I like the ring-to-call feature — instead of just a notification, I get an actual phone call. A doorbell press is important, so I think a call demands immediate attention, unlike a pop-up that you might miss. The lag is mimimal - it was the fastest among the ones i compared (Eufy e340 and Reolink). I did a similar test like you've done - i bought all three and returned the Eufy and Reolink. Reolink seems to have a lot of fans but it performed so poorly compared to the Tapo. It was significantly laggy and the app was bad. Tapo's app is so much more refined and polished. A few reasons I didn't go with Eufy are 1. No 24x7 recording (You'll need it sometimes if you don’t have a dedicated camera in the front) 2. No RTSP support and 3. Eufy has a history of lying about it's encryption. You can read about it online

Don’t get the battery one. I bought it and returned it. It doesn’t have ONVIF, RTSP, or any of the things that would make integrate with HA or Scrypted, and the battery constantly goes dead even though I had it connected to my transformer. Just sucked all around for this purpose. I replaced it with the hardwired wi-fi version and it’s 100x better. I use it mostly with Scrypted and Homekit, but it is added to my HA instance as well. The difference in image quality is negligible to my eyes although the battery version did have a wider FOV.

I have no problem with the reolink app. It works and is pretty straightforward. It usesy Synology as an NVR which is great. I haven't done much with it inside HA so far.

Home Assistant + Frigate & my Reolink Doorbell do this perfectly.

We have REOLINK. The cameras constantly record and the file is saved to a computer in our home for two weeks. (We can change it to whatever, but that seemed like the best compromise for space requirements.). We initially had a Ring, but it was frustrating that it would start recording as someone walked away from the door.

Hardwire to my existing doorbell, work perfect with home assistant, only complain I have is that when paired with home assistant I don’t get the sensors in home assistant for person detection, doorbell press, etc. my replink was really good with that.

*I'm looking for a doorbell that is connected to an electrical outlet/electricity and that also has battery as a backup in case there is a power outage.* *This doorbell should be connected to wifi and should also have 4g/5g as a backup in case the wifi stops working due to, for example, a power outage.* These are problems to solve on your infrastructure side. My Reolink can do all of those because it's PoE, on a UPS and my router has WAN failover to 5G.

This is why I bought reolink for our doorbell. It works really good and the chime is pretty loud

Skip the ring, grab a [Reolink doorbell camera](https://amzn.to/42pUJsa) Has everything you need and zero subscriptions.   Wired (poe) is always best, but they have wifi versions as well.   Been using them for 10 years and extremely happy with Reolink.  Their other cameras blow ring out of the water, and they don't allow anyone you don't want to access your cameras, unlike ring with it's backdoor access.  

Mine started doing a high usage notification ever since the last firmware update.   It's a battery model that is wired.  Its always at 89-90% battery when I check it and in no danger of ever running low unless the power is out Is there a way to mute this particular alarm?

Great thank you! Thought as much… unfortunately we’re struggling with a few aspects that are making the battery doorbell more attractive: 1) very difficult to run wiring for PoE, I am going to try to look into a power cable at least 2) the doorbell is in a porch, and faces the sun so HDR is required and 3) a head to toe view is required. I think it looks like the battery doorbell is the best option…

Most compatible with HA replink for sure, most compatible with HomeKit, aqara g410, I switched my replink to aqara for my doorbell because I never got the 2 way audio to work, I moved the reolink doorbell to the garage, as a camera or perfect but for the rest of the family and notification and HomeKit, I prefer aqara. Is not perfect but is better

I created a new post to better understand the battery.  I moved the camera to my BaseUS USB-C charger and I appear to be now gaining over 10% an hour. 

I just installed this camera. Learning a lot about the battery on here but have so many questions.  When I installed it was at 29% and maintained on a an 18v transformer, then the cold hit at -5°f and battery depleted quickly and I got a low battery alert.  I then popped the camera out, leaving the bell connected, used my Apple 35w USB charger, the bell gained zero charge in an hour.  I then disconnected the bell, brought inside, same charger and in about 10 hours it only made it to 55%.  Questions on the battery: Does disabling the mechanical chime allow the unit to pull more juice to stay fully charged? Can I leave the camera doorbell wiring on, and charge via USB-C at the same time? (Going to design a custom mount to better fit my situation, owning if I could hid a charge USB-C port in the bottom? What’s the absolute fastest way to charge this via USB-C?  Turn off, leave on, wattage, any other tips?

Thanks for asking this question as I’m looking into options. I think you’re actually asking about the battery doorbell or the wired variants (as they all have AI). As others have said the battery doorbell doesn’t have 24/7 recording, and has a wider 1:1 view. (P.s. I don’t fully understand the 24/7 recording so if someone wants to explain to me that would be great. Do we literally mean 24/7 recording, or does this enable the whole “the doorbell caught some movement so this video recording will also show 10 seconds before the event rather that showing after the event happened”?)

I am not sure about the Google compatible part ... But all my IP cameras have worked without issue in extreme cold temperatures. -55 F is probably the coldest I've seen where I reside. But over the last 15 years really no issues. Current doorbell is a Reolink but I have used other brands in the past. So what I am saying is just get what's best for your situation... I'm pretty sure it will work.

Reolink would be the best option. Eufy is ok but they don't integrate well with third party smart home systems.

I mean it's be silly to have my switch on UPS but not the router and modem, yes the whole rack is battery backed. *Can the reolink units be accessed directly via ip* Yes they also work well with the HA plugin.

Spot on. I switched from Nest. Best move I made. Excellent HA integration and very fast. I get 4.5 days of continuous on the SD card in the camera and 6 on the NVR.

Reolink has been great. Never tried Ubiquiti. Would love to know what makes Ubiquiti worth the cost difference. I can still return my Reolink.

If you're buying a Reolink doorbell, here is a tip that isn't immediately obvious. The camera sensor orientation is different based on the color of the doorbell you select. If you get a white doorbell, the sensor is in a portrait orientation and can do package detection. If it is a black doorbell, the sensor is in landscape orientation and it doesn't do package detection.

I really like my Reolink.

Definitely loving my reolink doorbells, can't recommend them enough. For the mechanical chime I'd suggest using an esp32 with esphome and an automation to ring it on doorbell press

Sure. I'd recommend get Reolink doorbell, and then connecting it to their first party NVR solution or something like Frigate or BlueIris.

I'm just using a third party NVR with my Reolink doorbell and it's working fine. I installed it the other day, I haven't yet found out how to make the notification of the doorbell more prominent on my Android phone.

Were you able to integrate this into google home system to use their speakers as a chime ? I've been back and forward with Reolink support currently with this wifi battery doorbell as there doesn't seem to be any way to turn off sound notifications being sent through to the nest speakers within the house  for motion/people/packages etc unless you disable all push notifications for those items full stop which defeats the purpose of a doorbell giving you notifications when someone approaches.  The google doorbell works well by ringing when pressed and simply sending silent notifications to my phone if the postman walks to the front and just drops off a package without ringing the doorbell. This reolink doorbell however is currently just sending constant sound notifications for every motion.  I've even tried making all notifications " silent " which still doesn't help the situation. 

Thanks for the information! Just need to look into if I can get a wire out now… I bought the battery one but the battery life is pretty poor (we’re talking days, forget months).

The battery doorbell cannot do 24/7 recording. The wired doorbells can. Both have the same AI detectors as far as I know. (But the wired black doorbell (landscape view) don't do packages detection the the white wired ones (portrait view) due to the different camera views. If you want 24/7 recording get the wired doorbells (wifi or poe), and if you want package detection get the wired white doorbell. If you don't care about 24/7 recording the battery should be fine

Home Assistant is a smart home platform which handles the UI of all that stuff. Frigate is the NVR software that the camera connects to. I get doorbell press events, 2 way audio etc. All while the Reolink doorbell only has LAN access and is connected via HTTP FLV and RTSP/ONVIF.

With 230v running through the chime and button (which sounds crazy to me) you could probably get away with using a Zigbee dry contact sensor like a Shelly for chime events. Anything else is going to require a transformer to step down to a “normal” level of 12-24 volts. The Reolink WiFi will work fine with this but won’t drive a mechanical chime. You have to use the one it came with. It also comes with a transformer, at least the US version does, (a small power brick) that you might be able to use the existing wiring in your wall for after it’s disconnected from the mains. That’s exactly what I did. My existing doorbell transformer wasn’t adequate so I just used the one that came with it instead. It came with a wireless chime that I use inside the house. The WiFi + battery version can drive a mechanical chime typical in USA applications but it sucks and doesn’t even work with HA anyway.

Reolink battery version does not work with HA unless you also buy their DVR.

Reolink cameras do not need a subscription. The function beautifully without it and in fact if you add their NVR or home hub it even makes less sense to get a subscription. The cameras can also record directly to FTP for example if you have an Nas setup pretty much anywhere in the world. Very versatile cameras with great performance. I've had the doorbell for about a year and a half now and it's been excellent. The beautiful thing about it as well is it has Wi-Fi and Poe options built into the same device. Presently using it with Wi-Fi but this summer I'm going to use its Poe capabilities.